Thad Bosley

The first of what should be many great duels between Giolito and Plesac in the years to come!

Another defensive beaut by Leury!

Yankees pried Gleyber Torres away from our friends on the north side for the privilege of just three months of Aroldis Chapman. Granted, Chapman still was a tier above Colome, but the way Colome is going about his business so far this year, who knows?

One of the reasons it’s been explained to us why Renteria was selected to manage the Sox through the so-called rebuild was because of his ability to develop young players at the Major League level. Not quite sure how effective a development opportunity it was for Lopez to stay in against those extra four hitters. If anything, it was an adverse experience for the young man tonight, win or no win.

+1

Well with Reinsdorf, who, as baseball’s longest tenured owner and who will be entering his 40th year as owner next season, and Williams & Hahn, who will enter their 20th year together next year as the top two executives in the FO, ya would have thought the lightbulb would have gone off over their heads a long time ago.

Well, therein lies the rub. “RH and the FO” don’t have a good track record at deciding who to get with their resources. In fact, they have a pretty lousy record at doing so.

Don Kessinger was also a "player manager", which was sort of interesting at those times when you saw someone come in from the shortstop position to make a pitching change!

Machado signed a ten year contract; Harper, a thirteen year one. We could have signed either/both, and they would have been around for the entire length of whatever the next window of competitiveness is. Meanwhile, the operative word in your second paragraph is, of course, "if". "If" they spend $300Mish. "If" they spend big on the types of players you mentioned, then yes, we can forget the travesty that was this past offseason. But you have to admit, with this organization, that's a big "if" at this point. With history as our guide, the fear is the "spend" will be on a tier of players below the guys you mentioned.

If they didn't "spend big" this past offseason when they had the most golden opportunity imaginable to address those "biggest holes in RF, 2B", what makes you think they'll change course and do so this upcoming offseason?

Terry “Boom Boom” Bevington

Lol - you might want to see to get some Windex out and clean your mirrors before you go throwing this kind of comment out at anyone else on this board. Talk about trolling!

You do seem to have your toxicity A game in full bloom in this thread with these angry posts of yours.

One example of “unthinkably bad” comes later in this thread by none other than you when you referred to the long-time poster GreenSox as a “troll”. You may not agree with his point of view on Sox matters, but the guy is equal parts thoughtful and consistent with that point of view. That provides far more value to the board than reckless name calling.

Less than $65M a year could have gotten us Machado, Harper, and a late inning reliever. How close did we come to making that scenario happen?

Well, after more than 100 votes on this survey, I think the results are pretty conclusive - our fans, despite the often less-than-desirable product on the field, are pretty content with the fellas in the TV booth bringing them the action. Still experiencing low ratings, but it's not because of Jason & Steve. Stone Pony received nearly 90% satisfaction from the folks who voted; Benetti nearly 80% satisfaction, and a little more than three quarters of you like the two of them together as a broadcasting duo. All of this in spite of the fact that the two have to talk over a lot of badly played baseball. That's certainly encouraging for them once (if?) competitive and exciting baseball returns to the South Side!

*exclamation

I don't think I've seen or read someone suggesting that either player would be the "end game" for the Sox. Where are you getting that from? What I have seen many astute posters at this site say on many occasions is that both players, at age 26 and both already All Stars, were available to our major market team, the White Sox, who with their current, astonishingly low payroll, and with no other big spenders in the competition, managed to fail to acquire either player.

Signing either of Harper or Machado would habe been both a sound baseball move AND a shoot for the moon type of move for a superstar who could build hype and sell tickets.

Only problem was Philadelphia, like San Diego before them, was even more "aggressive" than the Sox.

The fact that the Sox play in the 3rd largest market in the country AND in baseball's weakest division, getting to play a third of their games each year collectively against the likes of Kansas City, Detroit, and Minnesota, AND STILL had to undergo a multi-year rebuild underscores the bolded opinions above.

...which is fine, but after 39 years of trying to “do it THEIR WAY” and with the deplorable results they’ve had, you’d think prudence would take over at some point and they’d try something different. But no, that never happens.

It's comments like these that often make me wonder what Williams/Hahn's peers in the other MLB front offices actually think of these two, and the current owner. Is our front office respected by their peers, or are they viewed as less than adequate? It would be fascinating to know!

What are the Sox paying Paddy for?